Livres en feu, livres en exil
Subtitle: Books on fire, books in exil
By: Michèle Haenni
Contributors: Mutanabbī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn, 915 or 916-965, poet; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Artists' Books Collection (Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Publisher: [publisher not identified]
Published: 2012
Place of publication: [Geneva, Switzerland]
Language: fre
Subjects: Violence; Pictorial works; Booksellers and bookselling; Bombings; Iraq War, 2003-2011; Protest movements; Books and reading in art; Intellectual life; Social conditions; Censorship; Terrorism in art; In art; War and civilization; Vehicle bombs; Visual literature; Specimens; Cultural property; Destruction and pillage; Artists' books; Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition
Other titles: Books on fire, books in exil
Description: Born in Hamilton (Ontario) Canada in 1969, Michèle Haenni studied Fine Arts and Anthropology in Geneva. Her interests in multimedia and creative writing culminated in a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal, where she continues her education toward obtaining a Masters of Comparative Literature. As an author and artist, her projects explore different dimensions of writing, type, text, book, artists' books, installation and multimedia. She participates in artists' books events, and is an artist-in-residence with the Swiss Author Society. She explores, through diverse media, the space of the page; she organizes and participates at different events, and exhibitions.
Notes: Printed in an edition of ten signed copies.

Medium: Leporello 19 pages, inkjet printed on Hahnemühle Bamboo paper, matchbox, covers of books saved from the fire of the Library of the University of Geneva.

"Livres en feu, livres en exil (Books on fire, books in exile), find their origin in my interest in the destruction of books trough history. A series of hazards, from which the call for artist books of the Al Mutanabbi Street Project, brought me to collect books given away after the fire of the Library of literature of the University of Geneva. The ten art pieces are made of those books from which I tore out the pages. I cut the books into strips that fill the boxes, proceeding to my own autodafé, making a new book out of their destruction"--The Book Arts at the Centre for Fine Print Research, UK website.

On March 5th, 2007, a car bomb exploded on al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad. Al-Mutanabbi Street is located in a mixed Shia-Sunni area. More than 30 people were killed and more than 100 wounded. Al-Mutanabbi Street, the historic center of Baghdad bookselling, holds bookstores and outdoor bookstalls, cafes, stationery shops, and even tea and tobacco shops. It has been the longstanding heart and soul of the Baghdad literary and intellectual community for centuries. In response to the attack, a San Francisco poet and bookseller, Beau Beausoleil, rallied a community of international artists and writers to produce a collection of letterpress-printed broadsides (poster-like works on paper), artists' books (unique works of art in book form), and an anthology of writing, all focused on expressing solidarity with Iraqi booksellers, writers and readers. The coalition of contributing artists calls itself Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition.

This collection supports and promotes awareness to the important mission and framework of the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition's focus on the lasting power of the written word and the arts in support of the free expression of ideas, the preservation of shared cultural spaces, and the importance of responding to attacks, both overt and subtle, on artists, writers, and academics working under oppressive regimes or in zones of conflict, despite the destruction of that literary/cultural content.

Gift; Beau Beausoleil; 2019-2020.

Text in French.